This game has a bad reputation for being the weakest link in an otherwise outstanding RPG- series.

But I don’t see it, I started with this game and played the other games later on, so I may be blinded by nostalgia. The turnbased battles are very fun. The puzzles and dungeons give the ds Zelda games a run for their money .The music is just great and takes full adventage of the unique ds-soundquality. The graphics are great for a ds game, but the ds isn’t really made to handle 3d and this does hinder the artstyle when looking back several years later.

But, there are reasons people dislike this game, and I understand why. How fun the gameplay in an RPG may be, in an RPG story and characters are extremely important. This is where dark dawn drops the ball.

The 3 main protagonists and returning characters are all handled well enough. The later allys and villians are 1-dimensional and lack a compelling motivation, especially when compared to the first two games.

The cutscenes are often way too long, unnecessary and unskippable. The world of golden sun is unique and creative with many magical events and locations. The story also has its effects on the overworld wich is always a nice touch. Sadly the game locks you out of the beginning area after a certain point. This feels like a point of no return storywise, but is an annoying blockade gameplaywise if you didnt get all collactables before this point.

The story has some fun moments, starts of quite silly wich is fine, the ending is sadly enough not very memorable.

Overall I recommand this game to all RPG fans, the game is certainly easier than the gameboy games and this makes it accessible to new players. If you don’t grind this game also had its tough moments for RPG veterans.

My first playthrough of the entire trilogy, back-to-back. For reference: I had played GS right when it came out and it has always held a special place in my library.

I was aware of the mediocre to negative reviews of this game but was pleasantly surprised! The quality-of-life changes are significant, it has that low-poly NDS era graphics that I love, and it pokes fun at itself a bit. The battles are visually interesting, it moves at a good clip, and it's an easy game to manage.

Where it falls apart is primarily in the story and battles. Like the previous games, the story can be all over the place. I used a guide and without it, I would have often been lost as to what my current objectives are. The save screen does update with a brief synopsis, but the story thread is just hard to follow.

As for battles, I rarely found myself using summons and Djinn as the weapons and their specials quickly became just as powerful and I just spammed standard attacks in all battles sans boss fights. I would have liked more mid- or main-boss battles too. Sometimes it felt like I'd go through an entire dungeon with 1 or 2 battles and then no boss battle.

All in all, an ok game. That said, if I had played this in my formative years, I could see it really setting the stage for better RPGs. It's a great beginner's JRPG.